August 18, 2008

Jack Kelly Sunday

It's been a few weeks. I've been busy these past few Sundays so sue me.

In this week's column, Jack Kelly points his focus at Georgia - the country, not the state - and the outcome is unsurprising. He praises John McCain, attacks Barack Obama and blames 9/11 on the Clinton administration (in a round about way).

After taking a swipe at the silence on the left of the "now that we have a genuine war of aggression" in Georgia (gee, isn't the Iraq war a "genuine war of aggression" too? - perhaps that's why the left is silent, it's focussed on our genuine war of aggression, not some other guy's. But I digress), Jack quotes a recent Washington Post editorial:

You might think, at a moment such as this, that the moral calculus would be pretty well understood, Russian troops are occupying large swaths of Georgia, a tiny neighboring country, and sacking its military bases. Russian jets have roamed the Georgian skies, bombing civilian and military targets alike. Russian ships are said to be controlling Georgia's port of Poti, while militia under Russia's control reportedly massacre Georgian civilians. Yet in Washington, the foreign policy sophisticates cluck and murmur that, after all, the Georgians should have known better than to chart an independent course.

He follows that paragraph is this slap at the left:

It is scandalous to liberals that terrorists at Gitmo don't have easy access to lawyers, but most don't care how many Georgians the Russians kill.

I'd like you to take a look at the text immediately following the text quoted by my friend Jack:

"...Georgians should have known better than to chart an independent course -- and what was the Bush administration thinking when it encouraged them in their dangerous delusions?

By the way, please note how Jack Kelly frames the issue of Guantanamo Bay: Liberals are scandalized that terrorists don't have easy access to lawyers. Not detainees but terrorists. He's already determined that all those held at Gitmo are terrorists. But is that true? Is everyone held at Guantanamo Bay a terrorist?

Approximately 775 detainees have been held in Guantánamo since January 2002. As of late November 2006, some 345 had been released or transferred to around 26 different countries. The vast majority were never charged and are now at liberty.

So "a vast majority" were released without charge. Is Jack Kelly going to continue his rhetorical flourish and conclude that the Bush Administration released some of the terrorists?

No, I don't think so. Because not everyone there is a terrorist. But to admit that is to admit the US broke international law.

In fact, according to this report from Professor Denbaux of Seton Hall university, as of two years ago, a full 55% of those detained at Guantano Bay were "not determined to have committed any hostile acts against the United States or its coalition allies."

That's the scandal, Jack. The USA, that shining city on a hill, has been detaining hundreds and denying them full access to legal representation even though they've already determined not to have committed any hostile acts against us or our friends. That's the scandal and it's shameful.

But let's move on.

Jack mentions (though not quotes) progressive writer Robert Scheer:

Columnist Robert Scheer speculated Wednesday that Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili deliberately provoked the invasion to give John McCain a boost in our presidential election.

Here's the column. To read Jack, you'd think that all Scheer did was to propose the speculation with no supporting evidence. He doesn't. It's interesting to point out exactly what Jack leaves out of this reference that isn't a quotation. Scheer certainly asked the question whether Saakashvili provoked the invasion and then answers:

Before you dismiss that possibility, consider the role of one Randy Scheunemann, for four years a paid lobbyist for the Georgian government who ended his official lobbying connection only in March, months after he became Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s senior foreign policy adviser.

A paragraph later:

There are telltale signs that he played a similar role in the recent Georgia flare-up. How else to explain the folly of his close friend and former employer, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, in ordering an invasion of the breakaway region of South Ossetia, an invasion that clearly was expected to produce a Russian counterreaction? It is inconceivable that Saakashvili would have triggered this dangerous escalation without some assurance from influential Americans he trusted, like Scheunemann, that the United States would have his back. Scheunemann long guided McCain in these matters, even before he was officially running foreign policy for McCain’s presidential campaign.

Interesting what Jack leaves out, isn't it?

But here's something he inserts. He follows his reference to Scheer with this:

Mr. Scheer is a moonbat. But his charge was echoed by Susan Rice, a foreign policy adviser to Sen. Barack Obama (and the woman who advised President Clinton not to intervene to stop the genocide in Rwanda).

"Barack Obama, the administration indeed and all of our NATO allies took a measured and reasoned approach because we were dealing with the facts as we knew them," Ms. Rice said on MSNBC's "Hardball" program Tuesday. "John McCain shot from the hip, very aggressive, very belligerent statement. He may or may not have complicated the situation."

Ms. Rice was trying to explain away Sen. Obama's initially tepid response to the Russian invasion, in which he expressed a moral equivalence between the aggressor and his victim. Mr. Obama's stance has since evolved into what might be termed "McCain lite."

Here's the transcript. Can someone show me in that interview where exactly she "echoes" Scheer's speculation? In fact, while Jack wrote that she was "trying to explain away" Obama's response, actually she was answering guest host David Schuster who asked to comment about this reponse from McCain:

My friends, today, the killing goes on, and the aggression goes on.

Yet, I know, from speaking this morning to the president of Georgia, Mikhail Saakashvili, who I have known for many years, that he knows that the thoughts and the prayers and support of the American people are with that brave little nation.

I told him that I know I speak for every American when I say to him, today, we are all Georgians.

I'll ask again. Can someone please read through the transcript and tell me WHERE Susan Rice has "echoed" Robert Scheer?